International Business Applying Sap Erp System In
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T AMPEREEN AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU U NIVERSITY OF A PPLIED S CIENCES INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS FINAL THESIS APPLYING SAP ERP SYSTEM IN BUSINESS PROCESSES CASE CITY OF TAMPERE Xi Yang Degree Programme in International Business April 2009 Supervisor: Karoliina Nisula T AMPERE 2009 Writer(s): Xi Yang Study Pro- International Business gramme(s): Title: Applying SAP ERP system in Business Processes, Case City of Tampere Month and Year of Completion: April 2009 Supervisor: Karoliina Nisula Number of Pages: 71 ABSTRACT This thesis was made for City of Tampere. The main goal of the thesis was to have a good understanding of the ERP implementation process of the organization and current situation of its new ERP system. The other objectives were to speicfy in which areas of the system need to be imporved by conducting a survey and provide future development recommondatations to the organizaiotn base on the survey result. Since this case study concerned certain technical knowledges areas that might unfamiliar, the theo- retical part of the thesis needed to introduce these terms such as ERP system, SAP solution and Sie- mens Supply. This part stared with explanation of ERP system, description of the ERP implementation process and comparison of its advantages and disadvantages, which gave the good background un- derstanding of the ERP system; later on, this part introduced ERP solutions and ERP vendors in to- day’s market, SAP vendor and SAP solution in detail. City of Tampere is a public organization; most of the background information of the organization which included company structure, business process, business operation models and ERP system were col- lected from its public access. This thesis studied the different levels of SAP users’ experiences of us- ing SAP system in their work and their evaluations of the SAP implementation process by conducting a survey in City of Tampere. The outcomes of the research were analyzed by SPSS statistic tool, and the results were analyzed and summarized in sub-sections based on the questionnaire. As the con- clusion of the thesis, several recommendations were proposed to solve the problems found from the research results. Key words: ERP system, ERP implementation, ERP solution, SAP, City of Tampere 3(71) TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 6 1.1 Research Background ................................................................................................. 6 1.2 Purpose of the Research .............................................................................................. 6 1.3 Research Questions ...................................................................................................... 6 1.4 Research methods ........................................................................................................ 7 1.4.1 Literature and Internet resources reading ............................................................... 7 1.4.2 Interviewing ............................................................................................................ 7 1.4.3 Case study ............................................................................................................... 8 1.4.4 Survey ..................................................................................................................... 8 1.5 Structure of the Research ........................................................................................... 9 2. TECHNICAL BACKGROUND INTRODUCTION (LITERATURE REVIEW) ....................................................................................................... 10 2.1 Enterprise Resource Planning Systems ................................................................... 10 2.1.1 ERP and ERP System ........................................................................................... 10 2.1.2 ERP implementation ............................................................................................. 11 2.1.3 Advantage of ERP system .................................................................................... 12 2.1.4 Disadvantages of ERP system .............................................................................. 13 2.1.5 ERP solution software in the market .................................................................... 13 2.1.6 ERP vendors in the Market ................................................................................... 15 2.2 SAP .............................................................................................................................. 17 2.2.1 Introduction of SAP .............................................................................................. 17 2.2.2 SAP solutions ........................................................................................................ 18 2.2.3 SAP business Suite ............................................................................................... 19 2.2.4 MySAP ERP Business Suite ................................................................................. 20 2.3 Siemens Supply .......................................................................................................... 21 3. COMPANY INTRODUCTIONS ................................................................... 22 3.1 About City of Tampere ............................................................................................. 22 3.2 Management models in City of Tampere ................................................................ 23 3.3 Business process of City of Tampere ....................................................................... 24 3.4 The needs of ERP system .......................................................................................... 25 3.5 ERP implementation in City of Tampere ................................................................ 26 4(71) 3.6 ERP system users in City of Tampere ..................................................................... 28 3.6.1 User or key user .................................................................................................... 29 3.6.2 Controller or administrator ................................................................................... 29 3.6.3 Manager ................................................................................................................ 29 4. CONDUCTING THE SURVEY .................................................................... 30 4.1 conducting the survey in the organization ............................................................... 30 4.2 Analysis Tool .............................................................................................................. 30 5. ANALYSIS OF SURVEY ............................................................................. 31 5.1 Identify respondents from the target groups .......................................................... 31 5.2 Involvement in the implementation process of SAP project .................................. 32 5.3 Difficulty of the SAP project implementation ......................................................... 33 5.4 Support during the SAP implementation process .................................................. 34 5.5 Improvement in current SAP system ....................................................................... 36 5.6 Missing functions in current SAP system ................................................................ 37 5.7 Frequency of SAP usage in the new ERP system .................................................... 38 5.8 Values produced by new SAP system ...................................................................... 39 5.9 Evaluations of SAP system usage ............................................................................. 40 5.10 Opinion of purchasing SAP in City of Tampere ................................................... 42 5.11 Willingness of continue using SAP ......................................................................... 44 5.12 Recommendation of other ERP vendor ................................................................. 46 5.13 Suggestions for assumed ERP system implementation ........................................ 47 5.14 Attendance of SAP training courses ...................................................................... 48 5.15 Evaluations on SAP training courses ..................................................................... 49 5.15.1 Did the courses meet scope, aims and objectives ............................................... 49 5.15.2 Were the courses useful or helpful related with work ........................................ 50 5.15.3 Were the courses easy to follow ......................................................................... 51 5.15.4 Were the attended courses enjoyable .................................................................. 52 5.15.5 Satisfaction with own level of preparation and participation ............................. 53 5.16 Needs of new or refreshing SAP training course .................................................. 54 5.17 Preferable training platform .................................................................................. 55 5(71) 6. RECOMMENDATIONS AND FINAL CONCLUSIONS................................ 57 LIST OF REFERENCES ................................................................................. 59 APPENDICES ................................................................................................. 62 Appendix